3 years ago this month we shot a video with our friends JSP Media about Bridge2Aid and our pioneering work training local Health Professionals to provide a simple, safe but vital emergency dental service. I spent the best part of a week with Jem and the team, and we travelled to one of our training sites to view the volunteer training team in action.

The reason I tell you this today is because what I am going to ask you to do below was inspired in part by one of the children we saw on that trip. He was around 5 years old, and has probably been one of the most deeply impacting patients I have ever come across on DVP.

He was in a bad way. His face was swollen badly on both sides, and he was having difficulty breathing.

Ian, one of the training team, examined him and talked to his trainee as he did so…

As Ian says – tragic.

Not just tragic because he has such a bad swelling on both sides of his face, but tragic that he ever got into that position in the first place.

The truth is, that if, by accident of birth, you hadn’t been born in the UK, or a developed country, this could be you as a parent, sat with a very sick child in pain on your lap – this could be your child.

Toothache is really common. So common that we don’t think about it much, such is the level of access to safe and free treatment we are fortunate to have.

But what if that wasn’t the case?

What if your child had toothache and no hope of help?

With not even the most basic dental service available for the majority of people living in the rural areas of places like Tanzania, there are countless cases like this out there. And more than half of people with toothache will develop complications like this without access to basic treatment.

This is the treatment we provide. It’s what we train and equip government Health Professionals who are already embedded in rural villages to do, day in, day out. And we need to do more – we need your help to do that.